Bezabor: Promised Land trip (posted from home)
Sunday, 22 January-
I spent the morning catching up on email and the web. In the afternoon I took the Concours out for a little exercise and went for a coffee at Starbucks. On the way home I was clearing the cobwebs out of the carbs on I-83 and zoomed by a state police car apparently monitoring traffic (“But Officer, those pesky cobwebs can be tough to get out!”). But as it happened I was at the same time passing five or six cars in the right lane as we passed him so I can only guess he couldn’t get the radar on me or was tied up with something else. Whew!
This afternoon I worked on this blog entry and this evening we’re going to watch another movie—either a documentary about Noam Chomsky (‘Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause’) or a director’s discussion and early rough cut of the movie ‘Clerks’ called “Clerks: First Cut”.
Saturday, 21 January-
After another good sleeping night I again feasted on baguette-and-butter for breakfast and then packed up to head home. I didn’t want to take the interstate home so plotted out a course which would take me to Lake Wallenpaupack and then circle down through the woods on Route 402 to East Stroudsburg before pointing home. That allowed me to stop at an intriguing spot on the map—the ‘Thunder Swamp Trail System’. The weather was again cooperating temperature-wise but a front was supposed to come through in the afternoon so I only did a one-hour sample of the trail. I still don’t know why it’s called the Thunder Swamp but it was a pleasant little walk. I see this evening that the system consists of some 45 miles of trail so my little loop was only a tiny sample. I’ll have to come back!
I then plotted my way home via Route 209 to Lehighton, then Route 443 to SR61 where I wanted to stop at Cabela’s. Not far from Lehighton, I stopped at the self-proclaimed “World’s Largest Country Store” and found an odd mix of hardware store, espresso-bar, and country store. I’ll have to take Labashi there; I saw odd stuff there I’ve not seen elsewhere. I also stopped at a nature and magic shop in New Ringgold. I liked this little place. There were a couple of shoppers in the store and they had a ‘try it’ table. But the best part was the irrepressible woman running the store. She circulated among us, getting us to try the silly magic tricks. She presented what looked like a normal tape ruler to me and told me to go measure something. When I pulled the tape out to about a foot, it gave me a tingly shock. Cool! She held out a box and asked me to take off the lid. When I did, three mice were wiggling around in there—they were puppets she had on her fingers and was operating them from below the box. When the store cleared out a bit and she saw me pick up a rocket, she said, “Let’s all go outside!”. There was a woman in the store with two young girls and our hostess shuffled us all outside to launch the slingshot-powered rocket. I must have spent an hour in that little store.
I went on to Cabela’s and bought a couple of small camping items before heading home. I finally got home at about 1730 and was happy to be home. Labashi had spent the last few days working on a family history project and was ready for a break so we watched one of our Netflix movies called “The Corporation”, a good documentary about the rise of corporations and their impact on us.
Friday, 20 January-
I woke late—after nine o’clock— in my 34-degree ‘bedroom’ but I was toasty in my sleeping bag. I reached over and fired up the more powerful Buddy heater and before long was up and feasting on baguette slices with good, salty butter and a bite or two of Colby cheese, all washed down with orange juice. Why does such simple fare taste so great when you’re camping? I headed to another trailhead in the Bruce Lake Natural Area and was on the trail by 1030. I took the Brown trail to the Rock Oak Ridge Trail, then the Bruce Lake trail to form a 3-and-a-half hour circle. This was primo trail. The pines, rhododendrons, and rocks made it special- in some places thick enough that I was glad the bears are hibernating. I got back to the van about 1400 and had lunch while poring over the map. By 1500 I had moved to the wildlife observation blind where I was hoping to see the two resident bald eagles but no luck there. I spent the rest of the remaining daylight walking the Bear Wallow Trail. It’s a snowmobile trail so had a significant amount of packed-down ice left over that made walking ‘interesting’. But I got back to Lower Lake in time to see the sun go down from a wonderful viewing spot among the pines near the launch ramp.
Afterwards, I went to a nearby country store that had a sign saying they have, among other things, movie rentals! The guy at the counter brought the entire stock of DVDs out and that consisted of about ten movies. But, lucky for me, I hadn’t seen “Meet the Parents” so I rented it (after leaving a $10 deposit) for the evening. After sitting around my Kwik Kampfire-based campfire for a half-hour or so, I had a leisurely supper of Spanish ‘ready rice’ and then moved to the van to watch ‘Meet the Parents’ via my laptop’s DVD player. Again, I was very comfortable in shirtsleeves using just the smaller Black Cat heater.
Thursday, 19 January-
With a few days of relatively nice weather upon us (temps in the mid-fifties!) I decided I’d like to go see Promised Land State Park and camp there for a night or two. The park lies about a half-hour east of Scranton, PA so that’s about a three-and-a-half hour drive for me in Mocha Joe. I made a couple of stops along the way to pick up some supplies and didn’t get to the park office – under a heavy overcast--- until about 1430. But by 1500 I was pulling into the parking lot of the Bruce Lake Natural Area—just as it started to sleet. But I could see a glimmer of sunshine off in the distance so thought the sleet would only last a few minutes and that’s indeed what happened. It soon passed and I started walking with dark overhanging clouds above but they cleared up within the half-hour or so and I enjoyed a spectacular evening. I followed the trail to Egypt Meadow and though I was only a mile or so off the road there, it looked and felt remote. The frozen lake looked incredible in the reddish light of the “golden-hour” of dusk. The land around me was rocky with lichen-covered ironstone and by the lake the woods was thick with dark-green rhododendron. I got back to the van just before dark.
Earlier, when I paid for my campground site I learned the modern section was closed for construction so electric hookups were not available (so much for checking the web for current information about state park campgrounds) . But no matter this night—the evening stayed in the forties and only dropped to the mid-thirties overnight. That allows me to very comfortably use my smaller and completely noiseless propane heater, a Coleman Black Cat, for a leisurely supper and a comfortable evening of reading. I camped on Pickerel Point at site 181 and was the only camper in the campground. Pickerel Point is little peninsula jutting out into the lake so I had the white-covered frozen lake on both sides of me and nobody around. Nice!
Wednesday, 18 January-
This morning we finished up the ceiling insulation job. We had one complex section of pipes and wires to deal with and then I completed the job by neatly stapling all the new insulation into place. I believe I can feel a difference in the rooms above—the master bedroom and the bathroom--- already.
In the afternoon I walked over to the gas station to pick up my ‘beater’ van. It’s an old Ford Aerostar with 160,000 miles on it and the alternator had finally quit and had to be replaced. Sometimes I think I ought to get rid of old ‘Cherry Larry’ but it has four-wheel drive and has lots of space for hauling home-remodeling tools and supplies. Later in the day I started looking for a place to go camping in ‘Mocha Joe’, our travel van. That led to finding that there are several winter fests coming up in the next couple of weeks. The most interesting one is at Chapman Dam State Park in the Allegheny National Forest--- it includes sled-dog races. So I wrote some emails to the state park and the National Forest folks to see if I can find a campground, hopefully one with an electrical hookup so I can take an electric heater. I also did some checking on other state parks with year-round camping.
Tuesday, 17 January-
We spent the day installing insulation in the basement ceiling and completed most of it. The original insulation was only 3 and one half inches thick and was rated R-11. We broke that insulation loose from its staples and pushed it up against the plywood underlayment, then added another 3 and a half inches of R-13 below it. The work wasn’t much fun. As soon as I’d try donning a dust mask, my glasses would fog up so I worked without one. The work went slowly but the trick was to just keep at it.
That evening we went to a free lecture at Wildwood Nature Sanctuary near Harrisburg. The subject was an 1841 trip up the Pennsylvania Main Line and Juniata Canals as told by several historical figures (mainly Charles Dickens and Harriet Beecher Stowe) who wrote about the trip. This subject is of great interest to me since my third-great paternal grandparents lived along the canal at Millerstown, PA. They named a son after Dewitt Clinton, governor of New York and a key force in the building of the Erie Canal so I believe the canal was important to them. I have a conch shell which I believe was inherited from them and may have been used as a signal horn on the canal in the mid-1800’s. The lecturer did a fine job and showed many drawings and historic photos, some very rare, and gave us excellent handouts about the canal and about his sources. On the way home we stopped at the Appalachian Brewing Company and had drinks and appetizers. The PA pretzel logs with brewery mustard are highly recommended!
Monday, 16 January-
I wrote a long letter for most of the morning, then took a walk for about an hour and a half at a local county park. The weather was breezy and colder and that made for a brisk walk just to keep warm. In the evening we watched the Werner Herzog film “Grizzly Man” and I was a little disappointed. Timothy Treadwell had personal problems and it’s unfortunate that those problems led to his death and the death of his girlfriend, Amy. Herzog became a hero of sorts to me after I saw his films “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” and “Fitzcarraldo” and I understood what he went through for his art (and with Klaus Kinski) in making those films. But ‘Grizzly Man’ is a different thing entirely. It’s a straightforward documentary about Treadwell and though the story is told well enough, Treadwell is too sadly predictable. We don’t learn much about why Treadwell went to the bears and it’s clear that he was more about building his image than about doing anything for the bears so all in all it’s a pretty depressing, familiar story.
Sunday, 22 January-
I spent the morning catching up on email and the web. In the afternoon I took the Concours out for a little exercise and went for a coffee at Starbucks. On the way home I was clearing the cobwebs out of the carbs on I-83 and zoomed by a state police car apparently monitoring traffic (“But Officer, those pesky cobwebs can be tough to get out!”). But as it happened I was at the same time passing five or six cars in the right lane as we passed him so I can only guess he couldn’t get the radar on me or was tied up with something else. Whew!
This afternoon I worked on this blog entry and this evening we’re going to watch another movie—either a documentary about Noam Chomsky (‘Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause’) or a director’s discussion and early rough cut of the movie ‘Clerks’ called “Clerks: First Cut”.
Saturday, 21 January-
After another good sleeping night I again feasted on baguette-and-butter for breakfast and then packed up to head home. I didn’t want to take the interstate home so plotted out a course which would take me to Lake Wallenpaupack and then circle down through the woods on Route 402 to East Stroudsburg before pointing home. That allowed me to stop at an intriguing spot on the map—the ‘Thunder Swamp Trail System’. The weather was again cooperating temperature-wise but a front was supposed to come through in the afternoon so I only did a one-hour sample of the trail. I still don’t know why it’s called the Thunder Swamp but it was a pleasant little walk. I see this evening that the system consists of some 45 miles of trail so my little loop was only a tiny sample. I’ll have to come back!
I then plotted my way home via Route 209 to Lehighton, then Route 443 to SR61 where I wanted to stop at Cabela’s. Not far from Lehighton, I stopped at the self-proclaimed “World’s Largest Country Store” and found an odd mix of hardware store, espresso-bar, and country store. I’ll have to take Labashi there; I saw odd stuff there I’ve not seen elsewhere. I also stopped at a nature and magic shop in New Ringgold. I liked this little place. There were a couple of shoppers in the store and they had a ‘try it’ table. But the best part was the irrepressible woman running the store. She circulated among us, getting us to try the silly magic tricks. She presented what looked like a normal tape ruler to me and told me to go measure something. When I pulled the tape out to about a foot, it gave me a tingly shock. Cool! She held out a box and asked me to take off the lid. When I did, three mice were wiggling around in there—they were puppets she had on her fingers and was operating them from below the box. When the store cleared out a bit and she saw me pick up a rocket, she said, “Let’s all go outside!”. There was a woman in the store with two young girls and our hostess shuffled us all outside to launch the slingshot-powered rocket. I must have spent an hour in that little store.
I went on to Cabela’s and bought a couple of small camping items before heading home. I finally got home at about 1730 and was happy to be home. Labashi had spent the last few days working on a family history project and was ready for a break so we watched one of our Netflix movies called “The Corporation”, a good documentary about the rise of corporations and their impact on us.
Friday, 20 January-
I woke late—after nine o’clock— in my 34-degree ‘bedroom’ but I was toasty in my sleeping bag. I reached over and fired up the more powerful Buddy heater and before long was up and feasting on baguette slices with good, salty butter and a bite or two of Colby cheese, all washed down with orange juice. Why does such simple fare taste so great when you’re camping? I headed to another trailhead in the Bruce Lake Natural Area and was on the trail by 1030. I took the Brown trail to the Rock Oak Ridge Trail, then the Bruce Lake trail to form a 3-and-a-half hour circle. This was primo trail. The pines, rhododendrons, and rocks made it special- in some places thick enough that I was glad the bears are hibernating. I got back to the van about 1400 and had lunch while poring over the map. By 1500 I had moved to the wildlife observation blind where I was hoping to see the two resident bald eagles but no luck there. I spent the rest of the remaining daylight walking the Bear Wallow Trail. It’s a snowmobile trail so had a significant amount of packed-down ice left over that made walking ‘interesting’. But I got back to Lower Lake in time to see the sun go down from a wonderful viewing spot among the pines near the launch ramp.
Afterwards, I went to a nearby country store that had a sign saying they have, among other things, movie rentals! The guy at the counter brought the entire stock of DVDs out and that consisted of about ten movies. But, lucky for me, I hadn’t seen “Meet the Parents” so I rented it (after leaving a $10 deposit) for the evening. After sitting around my Kwik Kampfire-based campfire for a half-hour or so, I had a leisurely supper of Spanish ‘ready rice’ and then moved to the van to watch ‘Meet the Parents’ via my laptop’s DVD player. Again, I was very comfortable in shirtsleeves using just the smaller Black Cat heater.
Thursday, 19 January-
With a few days of relatively nice weather upon us (temps in the mid-fifties!) I decided I’d like to go see Promised Land State Park and camp there for a night or two. The park lies about a half-hour east of Scranton, PA so that’s about a three-and-a-half hour drive for me in Mocha Joe. I made a couple of stops along the way to pick up some supplies and didn’t get to the park office – under a heavy overcast--- until about 1430. But by 1500 I was pulling into the parking lot of the Bruce Lake Natural Area—just as it started to sleet. But I could see a glimmer of sunshine off in the distance so thought the sleet would only last a few minutes and that’s indeed what happened. It soon passed and I started walking with dark overhanging clouds above but they cleared up within the half-hour or so and I enjoyed a spectacular evening. I followed the trail to Egypt Meadow and though I was only a mile or so off the road there, it looked and felt remote. The frozen lake looked incredible in the reddish light of the “golden-hour” of dusk. The land around me was rocky with lichen-covered ironstone and by the lake the woods was thick with dark-green rhododendron. I got back to the van just before dark.
Earlier, when I paid for my campground site I learned the modern section was closed for construction so electric hookups were not available (so much for checking the web for current information about state park campgrounds) . But no matter this night—the evening stayed in the forties and only dropped to the mid-thirties overnight. That allows me to very comfortably use my smaller and completely noiseless propane heater, a Coleman Black Cat, for a leisurely supper and a comfortable evening of reading. I camped on Pickerel Point at site 181 and was the only camper in the campground. Pickerel Point is little peninsula jutting out into the lake so I had the white-covered frozen lake on both sides of me and nobody around. Nice!
Wednesday, 18 January-
This morning we finished up the ceiling insulation job. We had one complex section of pipes and wires to deal with and then I completed the job by neatly stapling all the new insulation into place. I believe I can feel a difference in the rooms above—the master bedroom and the bathroom--- already.
In the afternoon I walked over to the gas station to pick up my ‘beater’ van. It’s an old Ford Aerostar with 160,000 miles on it and the alternator had finally quit and had to be replaced. Sometimes I think I ought to get rid of old ‘Cherry Larry’ but it has four-wheel drive and has lots of space for hauling home-remodeling tools and supplies. Later in the day I started looking for a place to go camping in ‘Mocha Joe’, our travel van. That led to finding that there are several winter fests coming up in the next couple of weeks. The most interesting one is at Chapman Dam State Park in the Allegheny National Forest--- it includes sled-dog races. So I wrote some emails to the state park and the National Forest folks to see if I can find a campground, hopefully one with an electrical hookup so I can take an electric heater. I also did some checking on other state parks with year-round camping.
Tuesday, 17 January-
We spent the day installing insulation in the basement ceiling and completed most of it. The original insulation was only 3 and one half inches thick and was rated R-11. We broke that insulation loose from its staples and pushed it up against the plywood underlayment, then added another 3 and a half inches of R-13 below it. The work wasn’t much fun. As soon as I’d try donning a dust mask, my glasses would fog up so I worked without one. The work went slowly but the trick was to just keep at it.
That evening we went to a free lecture at Wildwood Nature Sanctuary near Harrisburg. The subject was an 1841 trip up the Pennsylvania Main Line and Juniata Canals as told by several historical figures (mainly Charles Dickens and Harriet Beecher Stowe) who wrote about the trip. This subject is of great interest to me since my third-great paternal grandparents lived along the canal at Millerstown, PA. They named a son after Dewitt Clinton, governor of New York and a key force in the building of the Erie Canal so I believe the canal was important to them. I have a conch shell which I believe was inherited from them and may have been used as a signal horn on the canal in the mid-1800’s. The lecturer did a fine job and showed many drawings and historic photos, some very rare, and gave us excellent handouts about the canal and about his sources. On the way home we stopped at the Appalachian Brewing Company and had drinks and appetizers. The PA pretzel logs with brewery mustard are highly recommended!
Monday, 16 January-
I wrote a long letter for most of the morning, then took a walk for about an hour and a half at a local county park. The weather was breezy and colder and that made for a brisk walk just to keep warm. In the evening we watched the Werner Herzog film “Grizzly Man” and I was a little disappointed. Timothy Treadwell had personal problems and it’s unfortunate that those problems led to his death and the death of his girlfriend, Amy. Herzog became a hero of sorts to me after I saw his films “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” and “Fitzcarraldo” and I understood what he went through for his art (and with Klaus Kinski) in making those films. But ‘Grizzly Man’ is a different thing entirely. It’s a straightforward documentary about Treadwell and though the story is told well enough, Treadwell is too sadly predictable. We don’t learn much about why Treadwell went to the bears and it’s clear that he was more about building his image than about doing anything for the bears so all in all it’s a pretty depressing, familiar story.
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 19:19
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